


Your Horizon To Chase

by gentledusk



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 05:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentledusk/pseuds/gentledusk
Summary: Snapshots of Fergus’ life from birth up until age 22.





	Your Horizon To Chase

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: mentions of death, violence, injury, alcohol, nonexplicit allusions to underage (age 17) and later of-age sexual situations.
> 
> Note: this fic is based off of headcanons on my RP blog, which were themselves influenced by headcanons by mark_asphodel (DW)/markoftheasphodel (tumblr, ao3).

He doesn’t remember his mother.

It’s not really something that concerns him. As a baby, he cannot yet understand why his father takes him and flees the city, the  _kingdom_ , aided in secret by some old friends. Though his father’s movements are rushed, his hands are gentle as they cradle him to his chest, and even the jostling of their horse’s gallop barely makes him whimper.

~

He’s four, and his father’s finally coming to visit. They’ve moved houses again, and the woman-who-isn’t-mother says that his father is gone so often because he’s out there working hard to support him. At such a young age, he doesn’t really understand, and will often interrupt meals or playtime to ask when his father will be coming home. 

As soon as that familiar blond figure steps through the door, he barrels forwards, heedless of the armoured boots covering his father’s calves as he latches on to his legs. His father laughs, dropping his things to the floor and scooping him up in the air. Later, his father shows him how to hit things with a toy sword, telling tales of his journeys and acting out all the best parts.

As a young child, what he does understand is this–he loves his father, and every moment that they have together is a moment more joyful than the last.

~

He’s six, going on seven, and he’s in a different house again in a place called Agustria. He misses his previous “mama” a little, but this new one is kind too. He doesn’t understand why a furious banging suddenly comes from the door, why “mama” opens the door and then presses a hand over her mouth as a young man tells her something in hushed tones, eyes flicking over to him every so often. He doesn’t understand why it makes her shoot a glance back at him, eyes shiny and wide and so, so  _sad_ , enough that it makes him tug at her apron and ask if she’s alright. The young man’s eyes aren’t shiny, but he looks just as somber, watching silently as “mama” scoops him up (even though she said he was getting too big for it) and presses him to her chest.

“Is papa coming home soon?” he asks, but “mama” only grips him tighter, one hand reaching up to stroke his hair.

The next day, the young man takes him with him. He’d resisted, at first, because how would papa find him? But “mama” told him to go, telling him that he wasn’t safe here anymore, and that it’s what papa would have wanted. Since his father is the best, most amazing mercenary in the world, he agrees, letting the young man take him away from this house to the next. There’s no way his father would just abandon him, right? If this is what he wanted, then he’s sure he’ll be able to find him again.

~

He’s twelve, and he knows his father is dead by now. He’s old enough to understand that sometimes warriors just don’t come back. That sometimes nobles can be double-crossing liars, uncaring of who or what they have to step over to get what they want. He knows by now that he’s halfway a noble himself, but he probably doesn’t count, given the whole “scandalous bastard child” and all. He doesn’t want to be a noble anyway.

He’s also old enough to understand now that not all of the people he’s sent to live with necessarily want him around. He’s a growing boy, and he eats a lot. Sleeps a lot. Gets into fights a lot with people who don’t like his looks or attitude or lack of parents. His birth caused quite a bit of trouble, after all, and it’s possible people could get in trouble for sheltering him. He makes sure to respect his caretakers and do all his chores, and his caretakers never really say anything to his face, but he knows he’s a drain. A burden. Something to be passed off after their duty’s been done. 

He never asks why they take him in in the first place–maybe some of them owe his father, or maybe some of them owe his father’s friends. Maybe they pity the poor, parentless bastard and want to do their good deed for the month. Either way, none of them are family. No matter how nice some of them are, none of them can replace the father who’d been taken away.

~

He’s fourteen when he finally gets fed up with it all and leaves. He doesn’t consider it ‘running away from home’, since he doesn’t have a home to begin with. His current guardians probably won’t miss him all that much, considering the child of their own that they have on the way. In the eyes of much of the populace, he’s old enough to make his own choices now, and this choice is finally his alone.

It’s…hard. Hard in a way he hadn’t fully been expecting. Even as someone who’s been on the run or in hiding most of his life, striking out on his own is rough. There’s no guarantees of food or water or a roof over his head. He doesn’t have that many belongings, and on his first night on the streets his coinpurse gets stolen as he sleeps. He supposes he should be thankful it wasn’t his sword, and that he wasn’t murdered along the way, but–the loss still stings a lot, and there’s nothing he can do about it now.

He doesn’t have that many services to offer people–he can wield a sword, but it’s mostly based off half-remembered lessons from his father and bits and pieces picked up here and there from his various caretakers. He can fight, but he doubts that school-age scrapping counts as the kind of experience that makes for a mercenary for hire like his father. He’s strong enough, though, helped a little by his Noba blood, and sometimes employers are kind enough (or opportunistic enough) to teach him a few tricks in exchange for doing whatever they need him to do. Still, plain old manual labour is usually what gets him through his days as he slowly makes his way out of the region.

~

He’s sixteen, and he’s made the grave mistake of being caught in the wrong alleyway at the wrong time. Maybe they don’t like the look of him, or maybe they’re people he’s met in a pub before. He doesn’t exactly always know how to hold his tongue. They might be friends of someone he’s beat up for a job. They might even be people who had a grudge against his father, for all he knows. Maybe he’s old enough now to resemble him enough that they figure his son is the next best target.

Either way, five on one isn’t exactly the best odds, and though he holds his own for a bit the outcome is all too obvious in the end. All it takes is one stumble, one fall, and he’s on the ground surrounded with nowhere to go as vicious kicks rain down upon his body. There’s blood streaming from his nose, being coughed up out of his mouth, and he curls up tight to mitigate whatever meagre amount of damage he can.

He’s honestly surprised when he wakes up again, even if he feels like he’s been run over by a stampede. He’s alone and stripped of most of his belongings, but he honestly hadn’t been expecting to wake up at all. Most likely they’d been wanting to teach him a lesson rather than outright getting rid of him, or he’d definitely be dead by now. Maybe his Holy Blood’s granted him some kind of enhanced durability, or maybe he’s just outrageously lucky. Still, it’s hard to feel grateful for it when his entire body aches like one massive bruise, when even the tiniest movement sends fire streaking through his skin. He doesn’t know if anything is broken, and he doubts anyone will come if he calls for help.

He gets up anyway, eventually, even if he’s sure he scares some townsfolk off hobbling around with his clothes torn and streaked with dirt, with dried blood caked on his face. He’s alive, though, and that’s enough to make it through to the next day. It has to be.

~

He’s seventeen the first time someone buys him a drink in a bar, right after he’s finished up another job. He’s gotten a bit better at being a muscle for hire now, whether that means lugging around heavy objects for shopkeepers or beating up whoever he’s paid to. They’re chatting amicably enough, and when the guy offers to pay for his next drink he doesn’t pay it much mind. He doesn’t pay it much mind when they end up sitting closer together than they strictly need to, when friendly claps on the shoulder start to linger and he eventually ends up in the other guy’s bed. Maybe the guy liked his build, or his receptiveness, or the way he’d laughed at his jokes. Maybe it was his long blond hair, given how the guy had taken the tie out immediately and watched it spill across the sheets.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter now–the whole thing had been an eye-opening experience, to be sure. He’s not complaining–the other guy isn’t half bad-looking, and he’d gotten some free food and drink out of it as well. He’d even gotten a (relatively) safe bed to sleep in, though he does make sure to slip out before his bedmate wakes. Just because he’s never done this before, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the rules.

~

It’s not like he  _sleeps around_  in the days (months, years) after that, but he’s not exactly opposed to flirting either. He keeps it light, playful, unwilling to tie strings to himself when there’s every chance he’ll leave whatever place he’s at tomorrow. Sometimes he gets food out of it, sometimes he gets punched, sometimes he ends up in someone’s warm bed again. Sometimes it’s enjoyable, sometimes it’s not. Either way, he learns what he likes, what he doesn’t, and how to kick someone in the nuts if he needs to leave in a hurry. He learns what his limits are, and he learns how to spot who’s most likely to fall for long hair, a listening ear, and a big, easy smile.

He flirts with everyone equally, but his bedmates are always men–after the whole fiasco that his parents’ situation was, he knows better than to go around running the risk of having  _another_ politically charged bastard pop out of the woodwork. And besides that…he’s not really ready to support a child yet. Maybe one day, it might be nice to finally have a family of his own, but…he knows firsthand that mercenary life isn’t exactly the best environment for child-rearing.

~

He’s twenty, and life honestly isn’t bad at all. Sure, he still has to keep moving around a lot in case someone starts to recognize his (father’s) face, but there’s a certain freedom to not being tied down to anything or anyone, to being able to say that your next decision is entirely yours to make.

He’s a bit better at the whole ‘sellsword’ business now, and he’s even managed to get himself a horse. He usually works for gold, but he’s taken out a few bandits in his time in exchange for food and hospitality. It’s not like he goes out of his way to help the poor and the needy or anything like that, but sometimes–well, sometimes there are just plights he can’t ignore.

Even with his more easygoing attitude now, he still gets into fights–some people don’t appreciate sarcasm, some of them don’t like getting teased. Some of them are just drunk and angry, and some of them don’t appreciate him getting paid to nose into their business. No matter what their reasons are, they fight him, and he definitely doesn’t escape each fight unscathed. Still, none of them are the one-sided beatdowns they once might’ve been–as a solo traveller, he’s gotten more used to fighting outnumbered. Though he doesn’t always manage to  _win_ , living to fight another day is win enough in his books. 

The next time he gets jumped in an alleyway, he fights like a cornered animal–kicking, punching, headbutting, going for the eyes, the neck, the groin, anywhere that might be able to give him the upper hand. He’s older now, with more experience and muscle to back him up, and this time he manages to actually  _walk_ away from the fight. He’s bleeding a little, but the two who attacked him definitely have it worse, and…he honestly doesn’t care all that much whether they bleed out there on the ground or not. They’d attacked him, and he’d retaliated, because he isn’t about to die in a place like this.

Rarely, some fights even end up in friendships, brief as they are. Some people just want the satisfaction of a good old-fashioned brawl to settle an argument without the lethality that can come with it, and some of them even accept it gracefully when they lose. Some of them swear at him, of course, but others just burst out laughing and clap him on the back, saying that it was a good match. After a quick drink together and a toast to worthy opponents, he’s back on the road again.

~

He’s twenty-two, and life is pretty swell. He’s a full-fledged Free Knight now, even though he’s technically not the ‘knight’ of any place. He’s got a little money to support himself in between jobs, so his current lack of contract doesn’t really bother him. Sure, there’s a lot of unrest going on everywhere now, but…what can one guy do about that, really? Aside from helping out employers or people he happens across, he’s not going to go out of his way to stick his neck into the Empire’s business. That’s just asking for trouble, and while you could say that trouble is his middle name, he doesn’t need any  _more_  of it. He likes living, and he wants to enjoy life while he still can.

Of course, his resolution to avoid unnecessary trouble with the Empire ends the minute he spots a girl being harassed by some of their soldiers. She doesn’t look like she’s from around here, what with her deep green hair and all, and the soldiers really seem to be giving her a hard time. He’s probably not a gentleman by any means, but, well…

He fights them, because that’s what he does. He loses, after they call for backup, but he’s pretty sure he managed to wipe the floor with at least one of them. He gets thrown in jail for his troubles, and so does the girl, both of them getting dumped in the same cell as some serious-looking kid with brown hair. The girl’s name is Karin, and the boy’s name is Leif, and though he initially remains indifferent to their little prison predicament, after hearing their stories he ends up sticking his nose in anyway. They could use his help, and…they don’t deserve to be stuck in here. There aren’t that many options available to them without weapons, but he’ll find a way. He always does.

Then, of course, they all get broken out, foolishly responsible kids and all. And the rest, as they say, is history.


End file.
